Category Archives: The Little Sleep

While the ride of Genevich is not as historically important (and has yet to be misappropriated by Sarah Palin) as Paul Revere’s midnight ride, Filmmaker and fan of THE LITTLE SLEEP Marc Colucci took a scary drive over Mark Genevich’s favorite bridge: the Sagamore. You know, one of the two bridges that spans the Cape Cod Canal, connecting mainland Massachusettes to the sand, surf, and mini-golf on the Cape? That bridge that rises into the clouds, has no median and anorexic thin double lanes? Yeah, that bridge.

So, yeah, Marc Colucci doesn’t have narcolepsy, and he didn’t drive over the bridge at night, and he didn’t have any secret film to transport. But he did ride over the bridge on a small scooter. The thought of it makes my knees wobble.

–Last night I signed the signature sheets for the limited edition of IN THE MEAN TIME. I ended up writing a one-line story on each sheet too. Something along the lines of “There once was a boy who had a terrible, horrible hand.”

Look at what that crazy mailman left me today. Five copies of the chinese translation of The Little Sleep. Check it out:

The front cover. The book comes with a little wrap around cardboard thingy with a pic (relating to the plot, of course!) and text. One pic with the wrap, one without.

The back cover. Camera went all sepia tone of this photo, not sure why. Dig the groovy tree turning to birds. Very dreamy. It’s not in the novel, but it’s very dreamy.

There looks to be some sort of written introduction to the book, which wasn’t there for the American version. Gotta find a way to see what that says. Cooler yet, there are footnotes in the text! From what I can figure, it looks like there’s explanations for my western pop culture references.

And lastly, a shout out to the Chizine crew. This text appears on the back flap (must be from my bio):

In the interest of full disclosure, John and I are part of a mutual admiration society (see my top of ’09 list and his novel House of Windows) and we’re very good friends. That said, he’s not a smoke blower, and his blog post about my novels is filled with awesome.

–This weekend (March 19-20th) I’ll be at Vericon on the Harvard University Campus. I just knew I’d get into Harvard some day… Part of the weekend fun includes me signing at the Harvard University Bookstore from 1:30-2:15 pm.

–Thursday April 1st, 7pm, I’ll be at the Newtonville Books with Dave Zeltserman and others to be announced.

–Saturday April 3rd, 1-2pm, Walpole Barnes and Noble. Just signing. And maybe juggling. Or tap dancing.

–Thursday night, Odyssey Bookshop: South Hadley is a far away land, at least for me, and if driving through two hours of non-accumulating-but-annoying snow and sleet is some kind of entry-into-the-Berkshires-test, I aced that sucker. Or maybe that’s a Free Masonry test, I’m not sure. Regardless, I shared the reading stage with the talented and magical Jedediah Berry. Jedediah read from The Manual of Detection, and then read part of a modular short story (which was envy-inducing with its awesomeness) , with scenes written on note-cards that he shuffled like a deck and had an unsuspecting audience member cut. All I brought was a rock.

In the audience were three other amazing writers (and yes, I’m implying Jedediah and I are amazing writers) Holly Black, David Anthony Durham, and Robert Reddick. The five of us went to dinner in Amherst and had a lovely time while a man in another room played the blues and in the men’s bathroom, the locals gathered for lively conversation. I am not speaking in code. (Read this for David’s account of the evening)

Later, I crashed at Jedediah’s place, met his housemate Katy and Milton the wonderdog. Milton was particularly charming, though he hazed me by unfolding the blankets that I had painstakingly folded, which resulted in a citation and a small fine because I broke an obscure blue law: one must not allow guest-used blankets to be unfolded by a Chihuahua with a first name that begins with M.

(Thanks to Emily and the staff at Odyssey for a great event!)

–Friday Night, Front Street Book Shop: Front Street Book Shop is in Sciutate, a small coastal town on the south shore of Massachusetts, home of my in-laws. I met owner Peg Patten last fall at a mystery con where our dinner table was forced to write a murder song. Thankfully, there was no singing on Friday. But there were, however, three real Genevich’s in the reading audience. I was only verbally threatened twice during the evening.

Peg and her staff (including one woman named Peggy; I never asked if FSBS was like the Ramones of bookselling) were incredibly warm, helpful, and accomodating, and I hope to back there very soon.

–Saturday afternoon, Cornerstone Books: It was a beautiful spring day in the city of Witches. Salem that is. I grew up in Beverly (the town neighboring Salem, and the home of John Hale, of course) so this was sort of a hometown gig for me. Jonathan (thanks Jonathan!) at the Cornerstone let me run amuck through the store, which was probably unwise, but I didn’t do any real damage. I did notice that Joe Hill had already been to the store, signed everything, and left little red horns everywhere. While I did not morally approve of his obvious use of witchcraft and other assorted warlockery, I remained composed for my stay at the store.

At the reading I met John, he of a history degree and reader of noir and PK Dick. John’s wife helps to run the Salem Athenaeum which is only one of 16 subscription libraries left in the US. They were celebrating the library’s 200th birthday on Saturday, along with a fundraiser that evening. I hope it went well for them. And coincidentally enough, there was an article about the Athenaeum in the Globe today. Give it a read and consider a donation!

My children were at the reading too. They were bored. Sorry, guys.

Post-reading, there was dinner with friends and family, then my mother, aunt and I hit Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, which, apparently, is rated number 1 out of 38 things to do in Salem. I thought there was at least 53 things to do in Salem, but I could be wrong. The Gallery was harmless fun. It was nice to see Hammer Films (an Oliver Reed werewolf) and Peter Cushing’s likenesses represented!